D&D Combat Example #1

This example follows the Basic Rules and covers basic attack and damage, drawing weapons, critical hits, hit dice and short rests. Elreth is based on the Noble Human Fighter from the Starter Set Characters.

Walking home alone in the evening, Elreth is accosted by two thugs. They threaten him for his valuables, but Elreth resists.

The two thugs are assumed to have no natural modifiers to attack rolls and ability checks. They wear leather armour, wield shortswords and have 8 HP.

Initiative (Elreth): rolls 15 - 1 = 14

Elreth has -1 to his initiative checks due to his -1 dexterity modifier.

Elreth has a +5 bonus to attack rolls, due to his +3 strength modifier and a +2 proficiency bonus with martial weapons. He also has a +3 damage bonus, due to the +3 strength modifier. A weapon may be drawn as part of the attack action, since each turn a character may interact with any one object or feature of the environment for free as part of an action.

A natural 20 on an attack roll always hits and is a critical hit. For a critical hit, the damage dice for the attack are rolled twice and added together, then any relevant modifiers are included. In this case, a greataxe does 1d12 damage, so on a critical hit, the damage is 2d12 + modifiers.

After the fight, Elreth ducks into a quiet tavern for a short rest. He rolls 6 + 2 = 8 and recovers 8 HP.

A short rest is a period of low stress downtime, at least 1 hour in length. During a short rest, a character may use hit dice to heal, which Elreth elects to do. He has 1d10 hit dice and his +2 constitution modifier is added to the roll. Elreth now has no hit dice remaining until he takes a long rest (8 hours or more).